The University of California, Santa Barbara (commonly referred to as UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a 1,022-acre (414 ha) site in Goleta, California, United States, 8 miles (13 km) from Santa Barbara and 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944 and is the third-oldest general-education campus in the system.

UCSB is one of America's Public Ivy universities, which recognizes top public research universities in the United States. The university is a comprehensive doctoral university and is organized into five colleges and schools offering 87 undergraduate degrees and 55 graduate degrees. The campus is the 6th-largest in the UC system by enrollment with 18,977 undergraduate and 2,950 graduate students. In 2012, UCSB was ranked 41st among "National Universities" and 10th among public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The university was also ranked 35th worldwide by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and 34th worldwide (6th worldwide for engineering) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2012.

UC Santa Barbara is a "very high activity" research university and spent $191.2 million on research expenditures in the 2007 fiscal year, 97th-largest in the United States. UCSB houses twelve national research centers, including the renowned Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. UCSB faculty includes five Nobel Prize laureates, one Fields Medalist, 29 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 27 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 23 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. UCSB was the No. 3 host on the ARPAnet and was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1995.

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos compete in the NCAA Division I Big West Conference. The Gauchos have won NCAA national championships in men's soccer and men's water polo.